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Koreas begin talks on reopening joint factory park

The Associated Press

Updated:
07/10/2013 12:35:54 AM EDT

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South Korean owners who run factories in the stalled South Korea and North Korea's joint Kaesong Industrial Complex, and workers, check their vehicles before they leave for North Korea's city Kaesong at the customs, immigration and quarantine office near the border village of Panmunjom, that has separated the two Koreas since the Korean War, in Paju, north of Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, July 10, 2013. As North and South Korean delegates agreed over the last weekend on a desire to restart the stalled jointly run factory park, North Korea agreed to let South Korean factory managers visit Kaesong to retrieve products and supplies left at the complex, and inspect factory equipment from Wednesday to decrease possible damage ahead of the rainy season, according to the KCNA and the Unification Ministry.

SEOUL, South Korea—Government officials from North and South Korea met Wednesday in a North Korean border town to discuss how to restart a factory complex they ran until it was shut down in April.

The shutdown at the park just over the heavily armed border came during high tensions that followed Pyongyang's third nuclear test in February. North and South Korea agreed over the weekend on a desire to restart work there and are now discussing details about how to do that.

The complex at Kaesong combines South Korean knowhow and cheap North Korean labor. It was the countries' last remaining major cooperation project.

Representatives of South Korean factories at Kaesong also went to the complex Wednesday to inspect factory equipment that had been left idle during the shutdown, during the peninsula's rainy season.